Self(ish)(less) Love, Helper-Pleaser Syndrome, & these Things Called Boundaries

Yesterday, my husband did the most exceptionally loving thing.

He cleaned the windshield.

You see, we were driving home from a weekend in the mountains, which had, naturally, caused our windshield to collect a fair amount of used-to-be-bugs. Also dirt: copious amounts from our time spent exploring the loveliest places on God's green earth--which, naturally, involved driving down some mud-puddle-covered, out-of-the-way roads.

And on the way home we were going be driving past (or, rather, through) another one of these breathtaking places: a narrow canyon with rugged walls reaching toward the heavens, anchored at the bottom by a singing, snaking river.

And, because I'm...well, me... naturally, I wanted to get some good clear pictures and videos of it all. So I asked my husband in passing to run the wipers over the windshield smears or something of the sort, I can't quite remember. All I knew was shortly after we'd merged on to the highway with a fully fueled car and three tuckered out kids and the quickly-approaching canyon ahead, my husband was suddenly exiting the highway again. Mildly puzzled, I watched him turn into another gas station (maybe he had to use the bathroom?) and pull up to the pump (but the tank was full?) and make a beeline for the windshield scrubber and squeegee.

SWOON.

Soon, the windshield smudges of former bugs were no more, my passenger window was squeaky clean for good measure, and I was wriggling with delight in my seat, my heart bursting with all the feelings from this super simple--yet totally selfless and personal--gesture through which my handsome guy had chosen to love me.

It was a lovely trip home.

But, self-judgey as I am, I also found myself mulling over my own lack of selflessness a few hours later. All the instances when I chose comfort and convenience over selflessness crowded my mind, and instead of feeling inspired by (albeit unworthy of) my husband's example, I chastised myself for being so consistently lazy in loving others, particularly those closest to me.

For example: It's dinner time, and my son wants to play The Allowance Game. I don't want to because it's the literal worst. All that number counting math junk and stopping to read the rules every other turn and managing pretend money when I can't even manage real money and hello, son, do you not hear the incompetence in your mother's voice when I shrilly reply, "ummmmm...mayyyybe laterrrr." Also, I need to make dinner. But the guilt prevails.

Yet this episode of berating myself for being selfish didn't last long either; fresh on the tails of my internal rebuke there followed endless memories of all the times I've virtually run myself into the ground helping (and/or "helping") others. All of whom, purportedly, seriously needed me.

I've long struggled with this; the understanding that I am one imperfect person with emotional and physical limitations, failing health, and needs of my own. As much as I wish I were naturally good at certain things, I'm still just not great at a lot of things--and I simply can't meet everyone's desires and expectations. Yet these wants and expectations keep showing up at my doorstep. So there I stand: demure, people-pleasing little Megan, rooted in my intense desire--nay, more like self-imposed weight of responsibility--to help, to be available, to pour my energy headlong into any and every emotional rabbit hole that materializes on the path ahead of me.

For so long [aka my whole life] I've been essentially lacking a middle ground. When I encounter those who I truly love but feel less pressured to please, like my immediate family who is stuck with me for better or for worse, it's much easier to love them how I want to love them. Which often ends up being lazily and selfishly. On the flip side, I find myself catering to those far beyond my inner circle who, in reality, fall much further outside my scope of responsibility; yet I feel more pressure to please them, respond to them, drop everything (including those who need me first and foremost) to serve them lest I be perceived as a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad and uncaring person.

This dichotomy, as you can imagine, makes setting boundaries--let alone recognizing which boundaries I need to set in the first place--extraordinarily confusing. And overwhelming. And painful.

But, as they say, self-awareness is the first step.

And after stepping outside my own crazy long enough to watch myself pinging from one end of the spectrum to the other:

End #1: "I'm so selfish! I never go out of my way to love those closest to me, I need to be more selfless!"
End #2: "I have spent this entire day on others and done nothing else...but still so many others are depending on me and I'm sucked completely dry!"

...I had a realization.

Loving others how they want me to love them doesn't necessarily coincide with how I need to love them. Specifically, how God calls me to love them.

I may chastise myself for all the times I've camped out at the selfish end of the spectrum, but it's a true revelation to learn that the other end is equally unhealthy and detrimental to my personal and spiritual progress.

In short:
Loving how I want to love others is usually easy...and self-centered, and doesn't result in a whole lotta growth on my end.
Loving how others want me to love them is usually a freaking roller coaster. If I succeed in meting their expectations, I'm momentarily appeased (as are they) but often exhausted. If I fail to meet their expectations completely, they're disappointed and I'm wracked with guilt. And it still doesn't result in a whole lotta growth on my end.

But it's not either of those that I'm supposed to be focused on. Loving how others need, not necessarily want, me to love them is where God calls me.

And it seems that if I conserved even half the energy I waste in trying to ineffectively people-please my outer circle, I would be a heck of a lot better at devoting said energy to the things and people I'm actually called to serve. Specifically, in my God-given responsibility to my vocation as a wife and mother. [And after expending the limited energy and time and capacity for charity I possess (because I am indeed, still human--gasp!), on those primary responsibilities, I can focus any leftovers on discerning who else and how else God is calling me to serve].

Going back to the dreaded Allowance Game: it took some grumbling and a little conversation with my ever-wise husband to realize that I was facing a two-fold issue of loving how someone wanted versus needed me to in my primary vocation: my son needed some quality time with me. But I did not need to neglect dinner and the rest of the family right at that moment to meet his need. {This rather obvious truth was clouded by my guilt over hating the game he picked--mea culpa, kid.}

A better solution: tell him when and where we can play a game together and honor that appointment when the time comes, while also remembering that I also have a choice in the flavor of game we play. I can either get over myself for his sake and play the darn game, or--if in my human limitations my exasperation with the game would ruin our time together--I could tell him that said game is a family game only (which I would've realized anyway had I read the directions) and give him a list of two-player games to choose from.

More concisely: if I can remove my guilt and insecurity enough to look more objectively at different situations, I'll see there's clearly more than one way to crack the egg, and the middle ground between my two extremes might not be as far off as I think.

This has been a slowly building and desperately-needed lesson over the course of the past year.

I'm beginning to understand that the sense of purpose I seek in "helping" and serving others will not be realized if I do so at my own expense (or the expense of those under my direct care). It can only be realized by meeting the valid needs that I am physically and emotionally able to meet, in the particular moments I am called to meet them, and when they do not detract from my primary vocation, which is my ultimate path to sainthood.

Granted, trying to define "at my own expense" is always a cloudy area. Where do my actions cross the line from being charitable and healthily stretching my comfort zone to being detrimental to my own well being? What is my measuring stick for striking the balance between selfish and selfless, between human limits and saintly charity?

Over the course of many months I've pieced together a few tidbits from personal experience and wise mentors, which has become my loose guide for deciding when to accept or decline a valid "need" (expectation/desire) that shows up on my doorstep:

• Will investing my time and energy in this endeavor ultimately detract from my primary vocational responsibilities or help sustain/strengthen me in it?
• Similarly, will it provide a good example for my children to emulate (e.g. bringing a meal to a friend in love) or be a poor example (e.g. yelling at the kids to get in car so we're not late to bring a meal to a friend, driving like a bat out of hell, and causing my own family eat an hour late while cutting into bedtime.)? 
• Am I filling a single need that my individual action can satisfy, or am I attempting to fill a continual, self-perpetuating need that I am not equipped--professionally or emotionally--to handle?
• Am I feeling pressure to commit right now just because I did so in the past when I was more able/called to? Conversely, am I declining now because I said no in the past without reassessing if I am now able/called to? [Most often it's the former].
• Is it mutual? Will this relationship/action/situation lead to positive growth on both sides?
• What does my gut tell me (before I start all that second-guessing and over-analyzing I'm so good at?)

And most importantly:

What does God tell me? 

This, of course, is the kicker. I can only get His take on the matter by actually talking to Him about it. It requires consulting Him first and foremost, being in constant conversation with Him. It means allowing myself to be vulnerably known by Him in all things (as if He doesn't already fully know and love me in all my lazy selfishness and insecure people-pleasingness)...so that, in turn, I can know and recognize Him in all things, up to and including the quiet whisper of counsel (which I often miss when I'm disconnected) that ushers forth on all matters from the Voice of Authentic Love.

Ultimately, this is the purpose I'm here for. Serving Him and His kingdom by serving those He asks me to serve. Prioritizing my limited capacity to love by focusing first on those He is calling me, in this day, in this moment, to love.

Maybe that means bringing a meal today, but not tomorrow.

Maybe that means meeting a friend and listening in love today, but declining an invitation tomorrow while whispering a silent prayer to the Holy Spirit who knows all of our needs infinitely better than we do.

Maybe it means four yeses and ten nos this week and seven yeses and three nos next week.

Maybe it means playing the daggone Allowance Game once and Crazy Eights thrice.

Most certainly, it means keeping up that hard but imperative internal work, crossing some uncomfortable ground to draw (and re-draw, and constantly reinforce) those necessary boundaries. And occasionally, it even means [gulp] having to tell people what they don't want to hear.

But more importantly--in good faith and with God's grace--it also means learning to respond to the very real needs God calls us to, that carry eternal impact, so we can love others in the most sacred, authentically charitable way possible on this narrow path to eternity.

This, I am learning, is the kind of selflessness worthy of pursuing.

Cheers, my friends, to the gift of crystal clear windshields and finding the virtue of the healthy mean between two extremes.